


.ten

by dotdotmoon



Series: one. two. three [10]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Crushes, Dragons, Everyone is tired, Grocery Shopping, M/M, Meet-Cute, Pre-Relationship, yixing’s cats are here but they’re not cats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:53:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24744145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotdotmoon/pseuds/dotdotmoon
Summary: Baekhyun has his shopping cart stolen, along with his heart.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Zhang Yi Xing | Lay
Series: one. two. three [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1642660
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	.ten

**Author's Note:**

> this is the second attempt at a fic i was working on to join a challenge but felt like it didn’t fit the theme either. so here you go!
> 
> (and as always when i write an yixing-pairing, this one too is for my friend)
> 
> extended content notes:  
> \- food mentions  
> \- very brief mentions of cigarettes/smoking

Baekhyun leans over the handle of the shopping cart, ignoring how it digs into his stomach. He still sometimes missteps into the air, in anticipation of the bars carts had up until a few years ago that allowed him to ride up and down the aisles.

“Fructose-free,” he repeats as he moves past the shelf slowly, to help summon the right kind from the rows of candy. There’s no response to his pleas. Desperate, he picks up a plump, plastic-wrapped strawberry with a sad face, squishy in his hands—when he spots invert sugar among the ingredients. He tosses it into the cart's corner reserved for his own items, then decides to park it in an unoccupied spot. If shopping for candy is this frustrating for him, Baekhyun doesn’t want to imagine what it’s like for a small child to live with.

It takes him only a few minutes to walk back to the entrance and locate the aisle with the stationery. He picks a robust-looking pencil case with a bunny print for his kindergartener, to replace theirs with the broken zipper. It's not the same as candy, he's aware, and he promises himself to do better, ask their parents in advance next time.

When he returns to the candy aisle, it’s empty. Baekhyun stands in the middle of it, thunderstruck with disbelief, until someone grumbles at him to move aside. He checks the aisles left and right, tries to peek into other people’s carts, feels his stomach plummet when his cart remains gone. It took him an hour to go through his own and his roommate’s grocery list, then to pick the right candy for each kid.

He walks down another aisle, stops at the lone cart he's passed twice now. It’s not his, and Baekhyun's tired. He wants to go home. Still, he waits around for a few more minutes, circles it like a cat that never caught prey would a mouse, then caves and scans the contents of the cart. It’s not too bad, he decides. There's a heap of convenience food that would fill the gaps in their fridge, fresh octopus, frozen fish, some greens, a considerable amount of toilet brushes—even enough candy for the kids if he splits it up. He could wrap it, draw faces on the kraft paper, use up the googly eyes from last Halloween.

A peculiar guilt weighs down his shoulders but Baekhyun reasons it's not exactly theft if no one's paid for it yet, so he pushes the cart to the checkout, piles the contents on the conveyor belt, along with the pencil case. He's wheeling his questionable purchases out the door when there's a noise and someone's running up to him.

"My groceries," they say, holding onto the edge of the cart and peering into it, eyes wide.

Baekhyun's never seen someone this delighted at the sight of so many toilet brushes. They look like a kid discovering they'd just sat on their missing favourite toy, and Baekhyun says goodbye to his easy dinner, his money, the rest of this day. He turns on his smile, bright and infectious, to tell them it's all theirs, and then run into the arms of early evening misery, but they pull at the cart with Baekhyun in tow, waving at someone in the distance and steering them in their direction.

"I had to take an important call and told my friend to check my groceries out. He took the wrong cart, can you believe it?" They pause, let out a hesitant laugh, tinted with a hint of judgement. "Guess you can, since you bought all of my stuff."

Their chatter is endless and endearing, and Baekhyun wants nothing more than to engage, treasure this easily offered tender bud of acquaintanceship. He's so exhausted all of a sudden he can barely keep his eyes open, is glad for the cart keeping him upright and equipped with a purpose that makes his legs move.

And yet his heart tumbles out of his chest and onto the grey ground of the parking lot when he blinks against the sluggishness, recognises the person leaning against the cart.

"Baekhyunnie," he hears when they're close, surprise slicing through the tiredness on the man’s face—mirroring Baekhyun's.

"Yixing?" His thoughts turn into anxious jelly for a moment. Baekhyun has to take a deep breath, but there’s none of the agonising longing he nurtured for so long, just a tentative fluttering in his stomach, new and so familiar at once.

It's Yixing—who attended the same couples cooking class as Baekyhun. Yixing, whose hair has grown out enough for him to tie it up. Baekhyun's glad his heart is already on the ground for everyone to trample on, or he would have deliberately lost it whole to Yixing this very moment, once again.

Yixing, who now looks over Baekhyun's shopping cart in front of him. "This makes sense," he says, nodding slowly, like he knows Baekhyun.

And he does, knows what Baekhyun looks like when he’s miserable from freshly being broken up with, staring at a whole chicken while swallowing back tears, knows the mood shifts he went through when he was paired up with the instructor because he couldn’t cancel the class in time. Knows Baekhyun is a kindergarten teacher whose heart flourishes along with the kids he’s teaching, knows he can—barely, but he can—resist a super slim, knows Baekhyun likes to show off his canines.  
It’s not a lot, and Baekhyun wonders what else his groceries are telling Yixing.

His friend notices his remark too, swats at Yixing’s arm. "How come a stranger's groceries make sense, yet you don't even know the staples we buy?"

Baekhyun can’t help but smile at them both, although his face feels like dried dirt, cracking under the strain. “What do I owe you?” he asks, digging out his wallet.

Yixing’s friend stares at him like he asked for the price of a cloud. “We’re swapping,” they say, and it sounds final, emphasised by the way they stare him down.

“Baekhyun, could I have a word?” Yixing asks, moving around the shopping carts between them.

“Only one?” Baekhyun asks inelegantly.

Yixing’s smile is small and still knocks the breath out of Baekhyun’s lungs. They step to the side, leave Yixing’s friend to rummage through the shopping cart they deemed lost. Baekhyun buries his hands in his pockets. It’s too warm for that, the heat of the afternoon still lingering. When he lifts his head to look at Yixing, he realises he’s being studied head to toe, then realises it’s because Yixing is dead on his feet.

“I wanted to meet you again,” Yixing says, gaze zoning in on the simple ring Baekhyun’s wearing on a necklace. “Not like this, though. You look terrible.” He doesn’t laugh, and there’s concern written all over his face, nestling into his dimples.

“Long day,” Baekhyun says. “Long week, actually.” It’s not even Tuesday.

“I’m even too tired to remember my phone number,” Yixing says in reply. He’s glowing yellow around his edges, and Baekhyun’s not sure he should. “I never fly with my phone, so I don’t have it on me. Do you?”

Baekhyun shakes his head no. His vanished during lunch break, and he suspects one of the kids hid it somewhere around the kindergarten. Hopefully they didn’t bury it in the sandbox again.

There’s a nudge to his back, measured and delicate, and Baekhyun raises his empty hand automatically. “Lulu?” he asks in Yixing’s direction when the dragon’s cheek presses into his palm.

“Luobo,” Yixing corrects, leans into the body of the dragon curling around him to keep him upright. “You know,” Yixing starts, opening his eyes wide in an attempt to stay awake, “I had the worst crush on you. You thought my best friend was my boyfriend, and I didn’t want to—you were in such a bad place. It wouldn’t have been fair to either of us to—”

Luobo catches him before he can slide to the ground, and Yixing sighs with his eyes closed.

Baekhyun meets the dragon’s gaze, rubs his thumb over Luobo’s cheek. “If I gave you my address, would you drop Yixing off? If he asks you to?”

The dragon squints at him, as if to size him up, and Baekhyun laughs when it registers that it’s pulling his leg. He pats its cheek, takes the puff of air he’s enveloped in after whispering his address into its ear as a good sign. Dragons aren’t the best with street names, he’s heard, but he’s made sure to mention the park nearby with its ancient tree, how he can see the sun rising from his bed.

Baekhyun goes to get his cart, watches Luobo nudge Yixing’s friend aside when they want to give him a leg-up to get into one of the saddles. Teeth carefully bared, Luobo drops Yixing into the cart on top of his groceries, then secures the cart between its claws before taking off, the wind pushing Baekhyun a few steps back. Worry for their vegetables attempts to piece itself together in Baekhyun's mind before he shuts it down to preserve the energy for the walk home.

Aching for Yixing was the most comfortable rebound Baekhyun could have asked for, he thinks as he wheels the cart over to the sidewalk. With a little luck and some effort on their behalf, they could find something between them, even if it’s just a walking date to return their shopping carts.

**Author's Note:**

> the dragons weren't supposed to happen, but what can you do! sometimes that's just how it is.
> 
> (if you found a terrible mistake, please don't tell me, it's 2am and i have work tomorrow. it will be fixed.)
> 
> thank you for reading, please let me know how it made you feel!!  
> i rarely reply to them due to mental health issues but: comments keep me writing. i also accept emoji strings or keysmashes if words are too hard ;;;
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/dotdotmoon) | [cc](http://curiouscat.me/dotdotmoon) | [listography](https://listography.com/dotdotmoon)


End file.
